Keynote Speaker: Richard Norment, President and CEO,
The National Council for Public Private Partnerships

The fate of Americas transportation infrastructure and thus our prosperity will not be decided on any given Election Day, or in Washington. It will be decided by financial, business, and political leaders, who meet a payroll, make an investment, govern a city or state, or serve in an agency or on a council, commission, or legislature.

Throughout New England, rail corridors are coming back to life, but will need to be financed in a new, sustainable way. This Conference on Value Capture introduces an innovative new way to fund the building of infrastructure that DOES NOT rely on annual trips to the legislature/Congress for 100% of a systems or corridors operating subsidies. The conference will deal with funding, organizational, and related issues regarding infrastructure finance, including examples both home-grown (rare) and foreign (widespread and successful) and how New England can once again, as we did in the 19th century, build the way forward.

The Raytheon Amphitheatre in the Egan Research Center at Northeastern is within a short walking distance of the MBTAs Green E Line Northeastern University stop, as well as the Orange Line and Commuter Rail Line Ruggles Station.

If connecting via Commuter Rail or Transit From Logan Airport, take the Silver Line to South Station, the Red Line inbound to Park Street station, and then the Green E Line to the Northeastern University stop; if arriving by the Orange Line detrain at Ruggles Station; also detrain at Ruggles if coming from Providence/TF Green Airport via Commuter Rail; from North Station take the Orange Line to Ruggles.

No automobile is needed to get to this conference; however, there is a parking garage near Ruggles Station. The Egan Research Center is located approximately 100 yards from Ruggles Station.

Based on similar repair costs at Metro-North and SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority in Philadelphia), the Reuters report estimated a cost of $32 million to repair the flood-damaged locomotives and cars at NJT. The actual costs of repair and who will pay those costs are not yet known. Weinstein claimed that NJT has insurance against such damage, but no details about any such insurance have been disclosed. In 2010, NJT was faced with a budget shortfall of similar amount. At that time, most fares were increased by 25% to close the gap. Local bus fares went up only 10%, but rail fares outside peak commuting hours were raised by an average of 47%, some as high as 64%. If New Jerseys transit riders are forced to pay estimated repair costs, it will be expensive for them.

Reuters reported that Weinstein had said that the loss of equipment would not have a significant effect on service in the coming weeks and months. If NJT plans to restore full service, the reasonable interpretation of Weinsteins statement is that the damaged equipment is actually not needed. Management acted in accordance with that belief.

In Pennsylvania, SEPTA is in the process of scrapping Silverliner electric multiple-unit (EMU) cars, which ran through-local service between Philadelphia and New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s. That means the equipment that SEPTA recently retired had run between Trenton and New York in the past, and could run there again if needed. NJT management was, or should have been, aware of the availability of this equipment, and could have borrowed it to use for emergency service. Could that mean that NJT had, and still has, more equipment than it needs? At the present time, that is unclear, especially since NJT is running reduced schedules on many lines, which could result from a shortage of usable equipment.

It is also unclear where any investigation beyond that launched by Reuters will lead. There should be new policies at NJT about where to store equipment safely, especially since devastating storms are occurring more frequently now than in the past. NJT should also implement new and more effective preparedness policies. In the past, this writer and other rider advocates have asked NJT management to overhaul its preparedness policies in light of less-damaging events, but to no avail at the time. Was the damage wrought by Sandy enough to force NJT to focus on emergency preparedness? Time will tell.

In the meantime, there is another ongoing story about equipment that was interrupted by Sandy and the long road to recovery after she struck. In October, NJT management had presented the Board of Directors with an agenda item to fund design engineering on proposed power cars that would work with the agencys multilevel rail cars on electrified lines. There is no similar technology in use anywhere else. In an extremely rare move, the Board refused to approve managements initiative, and sent it back to committee for further study. Such an action by the Board is almost unprecedented in NJTs history. We will look more closely at that issue and that decision next week.

David Peter Alan is Chair of the Lackawanna Coalition, which represents riders and communities along the Morris & Essex and Montclair-Boonton Lines, which lost rail service for over two weeks, and the Gladstone Branch, which still does not have rail service at the time of this writing.

Here are the links to the Reuters article and the other articles cited about the flooded equipment:

Greenbrier, (www.gbrx.com), headquartered in Lake Oswego, Oregon, is a leading supplier of transportation equipment and services to the railroad industry. Greenbrier builds new railroad freight cars in its three manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and Mexico and marine barges at its U.S. facility. It also repairs and refurbishes freight cars and provides wheels and railcar parts at 39 locations across North America. Greenbrier builds new railroad freight cars and refurbishes freight cars for the European market through both its operations in Poland and various subcontractor facilities throughout Europe. Greenbrier owns approximately 11,000 railcars, and performs management services for approximately 219,000 railcars.

Transport in Europe is responsible for damaging levels of air pollutants and a quarter of EU greenhouse gas emissions.
Many of the resulting environmental problems can be addressed by stepping up efforts to meet new EU targets, according
to the latest report from the European Environment Agency (EEA).

Editors note: In the United States, where scores of environmental organizations work to confront and reduce human-caused pollution, we sometimes look to Europe for their advances in solving environmental problems. But pollution from the transportation sector plagues the earth in every developed nation, and Europeans have made only limited progress.

The EEA puts out a report annually. The most recent one states that, under the Transport and Environment Reporting Mechanism (TERM), the environmental impact of transport across Europe has improved somewhat over recent years, but this can be partly attributed to reduced economic activity during the recession. Air pollution is still a major problem in many areas, and as the economic climate improves, more effort is needed to further reduce environmental impacts.

Euro standards for vehicles have not succeeded in reducing real NO2 emissions to the levels set out in the legislation although they have made substantial improvements to air.

In some cases, prices may be influencing people to make choices which are damaging for the environment. Buying a car has become steadily cheaper in real terms since the mid-1990s, the report notes, while train travel and passenger transport by water has become more expensive. Nonetheless, new cars are becoming more fuel-efficient. The average car sold in 2011 was 3.3% more efficient than the average sold the year before.

Legal limits of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter (PM10) are still not being met. These pollutants can affect the cardiovascular system, lungs, liver, spleen and blood.

The transport sector needs to reduce carbon.

Europe needs to further reduce the energy consumed by transport, since it was only 4.3 % lower in 2011 than its peak in 2007.

Noise is another impact from transport which can cause serious health problems. The report finds that in Europes biggest cities, three of every five residents are exposed to harmful levels of traffic noise. Even in the countryside, 24 million Europeans are exposed to damaging traffic noise at night. This can cause both physical and psychological problems.

Jacqueline McGlade, EEA Executive Director, said: One of the big challenges of the 21st Century will be to mitigate the negative effects of transport  greenhouse gases, air pollution and noise  while ensuring positive aspects of mobility. Europe can take the lead by intensifying its work in the area of technological innovation in electric mobility. Such change could transform inner city living.

Photo submissions are welcome. NCI is always interested in images that demonstrate the positive aspects of rail, transit, intermodalism, transportation-oriented development, and current newsworthy events associated with our mission. Please contact the webmasterin advance of sending large images so we can recommend attachment by e-mail or grant direct file transfer protocols (FTP) access depending on size. Descriptive text which includes location and something about the content of the image is required. We will credit the photographer and offer a return link to your web site or e-mail address.

In an effort to expand the on-line experience at the National Corridors Initiative web site, we have added a page featuring links to other transportation initiative sites. We hope to provide links to those cities or states that are working on rail transportation initiatives – state DOTs, legislators, government offices, and transportation organizations or professionals – as well as some links for travelers, enthusiasts, and hobbyists. If you have a favorite link, please send the web address (URL) to our webmaster.

Destination Freedom is partially funded by the Surdna Foundation, and other contributors.